BSN does not mean better... Sometimes education is overrated!

i have been reading several things on here about "i have my bsn so therefore i should make more money..blah, blah, blah" frankly i am sick of hearing it. let me give you a little background on me before i finish what i started.

i started out as an stna (cna) about 8 years ago. then i went and got my lpn. now i am getting my adn and i will graduate in may 2008. once i get my adn i am planning on going back and getting my bsn.

now let me say that i have met many bsn nurses who could not even figure out how to empty a foley drainage bag. they deemed that as "aide work". they also thought that they were better than us, and that we should bow down to them. also, i have met many bsn nurses who were so knowledgeable about everything and were excellent nurses. bedside manner was fantastic.

in general..i have met good nurses and bad nurses. that includes lpn's, bsn's and adn's. just because you have more education does not mean that you are better and should be paid more. honestly, bsn is a choice. it is a choice that i want to make. why would an employer pay a bsn all this money when they could pay an adn or a diploma rn less money for the same job? therefore...around the same pay for both. i just get sick and tired of people saying...i am better than you because i went to school for one year longer or two years or whatever. education is very important .....but its not everything when it comes to this debate. i met this master's degree nurse and she was sooooo stupid. i couldn't believe that she managed to get her degree. i knew this lpn who was smarter than any nurse i have ever met....rn's included. and vice versa.

my point: what makes a good nurse is personality, common sense and what you do with the knowledge that you possess.

hello lovego.... I can understand your frustration. I have not read the other post on those arguments but I do want to put in my two cents. I have a BSN. I have worked very hard to get it. I do believe that if you have more education regardless what profession you are in, you deserve more money. I do not believe I know more than an ADN or that I am better than someone with a associate's degree but I can tell you as a BSN nurse that my eduacation did inquire full yr courses that ASN schools do not give or incorparated them in thier two year programs. There is a big difference when you take a course for a full year. Obviously you get more out of it. You sound very angry and about it but at the end we are all porfessionals and RN's.
I do believe there are differences in nurses educations. From RN's with ADN, BSN, and or MSN. Unfortunately there isn't a school that trains us all the same info.

I have worked with nurses on both sides of this debate. Personally, I have an ADN. The BSN students that I have worked with often times are not as strong in their clinical skills because they spend so much of their time on ethical, leadership, and managerial training. Whereas, in my program, we did skills checklists out to wazzoo. How can students come out of a four year program and not be competant at starting an IV?? My theory is that ADN and BSN nurses are hired to do the same job, provide the same care, and at the end of the day we recieve the same amount of money(at most institutions).

Now the career advancement that is available for BSN students is where the money comes into play. The oppertunities to climb the ladder and make some extra cash are well worth it for the BSN and RN-BSN students.

I think every nursing student should be required to work as an aid for a semester, or over the summer before nursing school starts. I've worked as an aid for 3 years and just graduated Friday with my ADN. Aids always say that you can tell the RNs who were aids from the ones who weren't because the ones who WEREN'T will take 5 minutes to find you to tell you your pt needs to get on the bedpan..the ones who WERE will just PUT THEM ON THE BEDPAN Seriously, I swear that I will never do that. I know that as an RN I will not always have the time to do stuff the aid can do, but I also see those tasks as giving me extra time to evaluate my pt. As far as education...in my area BSNs do not make any more $ than ADNs. My thinking is this; for someone just out of HS, they're young, probably not a lot of life experience...the BSN classes will make them a well-rounded nurse. For someone my age, who's been around the block a couple times...lol....I don't think it's as necessary. Not for a pt care position, anyway.

I do agree with doing some aid work before starting nursing school. As for saying you will not bug an aid to do a bedpan uhm... I don't know about that. Give yourself a few months and you will see how intense of a work load you will have that you will need that aid to do it for you b/c you could be having someone vomiting at that moment and you are running for that antiemetic and then a second later you have on room #2 a patient SOB that needs your assistance at that moment. BUt ROOM #3 is yelling for his nurse b/c he is having chest pain. Now are you going to tell me that you will go to the 1st pt who needs that bed pan 1st. I don't think so. Aid s don't realize how busy we really are.
I find that a lot of people like to put their opinions out but have never been in those shoes.

In regards to BSN nurses not knowing how to do an IV. So what! That is nothing comparing to the knowledge they carry in their noggins. IV machines of whatever can be taught in a sec. Their are many people that are home cared and have them. The family who cares for them are not RN"s. They are individuals who learn quick. Don't judge a nurse for little stuff like that.

i am not really angry about this. it just all frustrates me. however, there is always going to be debating over this topic. all i have to say is those initials after your name do not guarantee respect or competency.

i believe that the students all should be an aide for a semester or year before they graduate. i know quite a few lpn's and rn's who will hunt down an aide for like 5 minutes and tell them that a resident has their call light on or that they have to go to the bathroom. how ridiculous when it take like 30 seconds to put them on the bedpan or walk them to the toliet.

in my class, there are a few students who have no health care experience at all. one of the girls said that they got hired as an aide at a local hospital. they made fun of her and called her a "butt wiper". these are the nurses who will be graduating soon. how sad....

i believe that she was referring to a nurse searching for an aide for like 5 minutes whenever she could have just taken those few minutes to just put them on the bedpan.

i have been very busy before. i know what its like. i don't just say stuff about things without ever being in the situation. alot of people think that their situation is so much different than someone else's when in reality..the other person is just handling it better.

I do not believe that working as an aid is necessary...I have two friends who are RNs and have never had an healthcare experience....they both have no problem doing an "aid's job"...when I ask them about poo, pee,etc they talk about it like it is not a big deal...if these RNs think they ae do good to wipe up poo, it's due too their personality, not because they never worked as an aid

There are good people and not-so-good people in every walk of life and with every level of education. You will encounter both kinds wherever you go throughout life. Get over it.

While it is wrong for people with higher levels of education to be unkind and disrespectful of those with less formal education ... it is also wrong for people with less formal education to be unkind and disrespectful of those who have more education -- or to assume that the type of education that was right for you is necessarily the right path for everyone else.

Finally, it is wrong -- and harmful to the profession -- for people to keep stirring these issues up and aggravating the hard feelings that already exist. As the old saying goes, "If you can't say something nice about somebody, don't say anything at all."

if you are going to continue to work at bedside an ad would probably due you well..my dtr has an ad and so does her husband they earn a good living and are not interested in going back to school
if you want to progress it would be better to have a bsn. if there is a good job in teaching, recruitment, etc with an raise in pay, better hours then the
ptb will probably chooses a bsn over an ad makes it look better on paper
and they still have an ad on the floor
most frequently more is better

I just have a quick comment...
It seems as though alot of times we dicuss the ADN who has "been around the block" and therefore is more mature and has life experience. The issue that I wonder about and have experienced is the ADN that was 17 right out of HS and got thier ADN and now are working on the floor as a 19 yo RN. This SCARES me...at 19 there is NO WAY i was ready to take on the responsibility to be an RN. I think there may be a few exceptions to the rule but i dont know many 19 yo's that are ready for that. I would not trust my health or that of my child in the hands of a 19 yo whether they were educated or not.
I experienced a group of 19 and 20 yo New Grads that came to ME when I was still a student and were asking me questions about med calculations and other things. It made me really nervous.
What do you all thing of the BSN in this capacity?(just out of curiosity)